What to do when you heart nudges you to leave your high-paying job

Sometimes you just have to be honest with your heart, with your values, and with yourself. What if your heart asked you to quit your high-paying job to pursue your dreams? Would you listen to your heart, or would you shut it down? Would you have the courage to take the journey? Would you answer your destiny’s call? The hero’s journey is not a glamorous undertaking, and it takes courage and commitment to overcome the challenges, failures, and rejections. Today’s story is about one young man who ditched his high-paying management role at 23 to pursue his dream of helping people. 

Meet Jordan Gross, an Executive Coach, Author, TEDx speaker who guides people to their Cloud Nine lives by helping them discover their true passions and purpose. In his recently published best-selling book, ‘Getting COMFY – Your Morning Guide to Daily Happiness,’ Jordan gives you a roadmap to invite calmness, openness, movement, and fun to your daily life experiences.

Today’s article is about aligning with your values so that your work is an authentic expression of your core self.

Question: What gave you the courage to walk away from a high-paying management job at a young age?

Jordan: For me, everything is about values. Aligning my work with my values is super important. I found myself asking myself many times; why was I not happy in my managerial role? Why did I want to leave my job?

What gave me the courage is a beautiful story of the importance of a network and a support system. One of my mentors is Peter Shankman. He started the company ‘Help a Reporter Out (HARO)’ and is a keynote speaker all over the country. He spoke at a conference I was attending. At the end of his talk, he said, “I’ll help any of you guys in the audience, but you’re going to do it on my terms. And my terms are 5 am in Central Park for a run. You’ll get 45 minutes with me to run and talk about whatever you want.” With genuine curiosity, I texted Peter that I was willing to take up his offer. A few days later, we met for a run at Central Park in NYC.

Those 45mins were life-altering in many ways. During our run, Peter asked me three questions. He said,

1.  Are you hungry? As in, are you starving for food, are you living on the streets? And I said, no, not at all.

2.  Do people love you? I said, yes, of course. A lot of people, including my friends, my family members love me.

3.  Do people support you? I said, one hundred percent. My parents would be behind me, and my friends would support what I wanted to pursue.

And then he looked at me and said, “You answered these questions is the same way that I did when I decided to go on my entrepreneurial journey. If you can answer those questions the way that you did, then what in the world would possibly stop you from pursuing what you want to do?” These encouraging words from Peter helped me shift my mindset and gave me the confidence to pursue the things I wanted.

The other thing to add is, I wanted to write more, network more, have more conversations, interview people, and that was not possible with a 15 hours hectic job. So, I knew it was time for me to make a change and leave behind the corporate world.

Question: Rejections are an inevitable part of the entrepreneurial journey. How do you deal with them? And how do you spring back up?

Jordan: Rejections for me, occurs every single day, every single hour because I am constantly putting myself out there to promote what I want to do. I have come to realize that the more I put myself in situations where rejection is possible, the better. That’s how I am going to get more comfortable with rejections.

The way I approach a potential rejection is two-fold. First, I remind myself is to open up to the possibility to fail. Second, I ask myself, what is it that I am scared of when it comes to rejection? Am I afraid of sharing my message? Am I afraid of being in the spotlight? Why would I be scared of being rejected? Once I identify the underlying cause (of the fear of rejection), then I find a way to work around it.

I think our core issues are not much about rejection, as they are about overcoming our fears.

As an example, I have always been afraid of public speaking, and I still get nerves going into speaking events. As I pondered over my fear of public speaking, it dawned on me that what I was most afraid of was having all eyeballs in a room looking at me and watching my every move. My main fear was, what if I make a wrong move or what if I said something wrong that rubbed the audience in a wrong way? Once I understood what was causing this fear (my perception that everyone will be watching my every move), I set upon finding creative ways to address it.

The way I overcame this fear was, I started my talks by asking everyone in the room to close their eyes. Doing so allowed me to get into a flow and gain momentum without the pressure of people looking at me. Once I felt comfortable and confident in my delivery, I would ask the audience to open their eyes. 

Question: How do you keep yourself motivated & uplifted daily?

Jordan: I am a huge believer in celebrating micro victories.

What I mean by micro victories are the small wins that keep you pushing forward every day.

As an example, my daily plan includes posting on LinkedIn, interviewing, reading, and writing. When I complete the tasks that I set out to do, I acknowledge those small wins to myself.

Question: How do you gauge if each day has been a success or not?

Jordan: Before I go to sleep, I ask myself three key questions:

1.     Did I have more energy today than I did yesterday?

2.     Was I less distracted today than I was yesterday?

3.     Did I smile more today than I did yesterday?

If I am answering these yes, then I know I am aligned with my core values and making progress towards my goals. It boils down to knowing what you deem as success in your life and celebrating it daily. You can only make an impact on other people in the world if you are coming from a sense that you’re enough in yourself, and that you have lived your life to the fullest every day.

Question: In your book, you talk about the importance of having a morning routine. I know many people who are night owls. How can your ‘Getting Comfy’ technique help them?

Jordan: I believe that no matter what time you wake up, it’s about what you do when you wake up. Say, you wake up at noon because you stayed up until 5 am, the ‘Getting COMFY’ approach is about how you are spending the first 30 minutes to an hour of your day. Are you waking up at noon and then at 12:15 pm, you have to be at a meeting? Or are you meditating in the first 30 mins? Perhaps you are journaling or exercising or smiling or even watching funny videos. My approach is about getting comfortable in the first hour of the day (regardless of when you wake up).

   Spending the first hour of the day doing things that you are passionate about puts you in control of the day. It sets the tone for the rest of the day. You get to control the day rather than the day controlling you.

So it’s not about being a night owl or a morning person but rather the intention behind what you do when you wake up.

Question: How is your book different from Hal Elrod’s book?

Jordan: The inspiration behind my book comes from Hal’s methodology. Hal’s book is the ‘SAVERS’ technique, that is, silence, affirmation, visualization, exercise, reading, and scribing, as six key activities to engage upon waking up.

I worked with the SAVERS technique for a while until I noticed that while I believe in the power of affirmations, I don’t see the value for me in my morning routine. Similarly, I know the importance of reading, but I’m a nighttime reader, so I choose to not include it in my morning routine. So, my approach was reworking Hal’s SAVERS model and putting it into something that worked best for me.

In my technique, I ask readers to choose categories for what they want to do in the morning, rather than being told what to do. For example, under the umbrella of calm, you can either meditate, do yoga, or go for a walk. So that’s where I differ from his approach. Hal’s technique is - here’s what you should do, whereas mine is, you have different choices to choose from so pick the one you enjoy the most.

Question: You shared that you landed your TEDx talk through authentic communication and creative thinking. Can you share how you went about it?

Jordan: Authentic communication is playing a huge role in my daily life, especially at the moment because I’m constantly on the phone, doing interviews, reaching out to people. Communication, first and foremost, comes from a place of adding value to others and building relationships. It’s about creating win-win situations for myself and others.

Being creative is really about distinguishing yourself from the rest of the pack. I am always looking for ways to deviate from the beaten path. I heard about a book ‘Third Door’ where the author advocates that we have three doors to choose from for pursuing any endeavor.

Majority of the people go through Door # 1. Taking the example of a job search, Door #1 would be applying to jobs online with a resume. Door #2 is like a bit more involved, like getting a recruiting firm or having a career coach, somebody to guide you along the journey. But Door #3 is the creative path. It’s what 0.1 to 0.0001% of people choose. It’s getting a job in the Sports World by let’s say, taking three months to write a Sports Research book and having the book as evidence for why you’re the right candidate. Door #3 is deliberately getting in touch with somebody at your dream company, having a conversation with them about their work and what they do, adding value to them without any expectation, talking about the job you’re looking for, and then having a conversation about wanting to work in a new role.

Door #3 was how I got the TEDx talk. It transpired from connecting with one of the organizers, having a genuine conversation, and then ultimately having the courage to make that final ask. And it comes full circle because I’ve put myself in so many scenarios in which ‘No’ is just another word.

Question: And finally, I want to ask how you incorporate vulnerability in your daily life?

Jordan: Vulnerability is part of the openness piece of my morning routine (Getting COMFY); it is about making that ask. I incorporate vulnerability by being open, being genuine, and being authentic, especially when I am putting myself out there.

I look at vulnerability as a skill. I have convinced myself that being vulnerable takes courage; it’s something difficult to do, so I know that the more I practice vulnerability, the more skilled I will become at it.

In conclusion,

• Your first hour upon waking is the most sacred hour; fill it with things you are passionate about
• Get comfortable with failures and rejections and find out which fears are causing you to shrink your light
• Use your creativity (aka Door #3) to distinguish yourself from the masses

I hope you enjoyed the article. Make sure to connect with Jordan on LinkedIn and his website.

You can order Jordan’s book (Getting COMFY) here, and you can order Kiran’s book (Overcoming Fear and Failure) here.